Mr. Ross: The 800-pound gorilla that I've sort of ignored that's sort of hanging in the room, and I know a lot of folks have seen it because I've been reading the boards, is The New Yorker article that came out this week which talks very specifically about the torture scenes in "24." And according to the writer there was a meeting that some folks from West Point and some other folks came by the set to meet to Joel and some other folks about the torture sequences. In particular what they were concerned about it seemed, is that when they were talking to recruits and folks in the military and telling them about how to interrogate people that folks have seen "24," some of these recruits, and think that that is actually the way it should be done.
Mr. Fury: Yes, that was the message they were putting forth to us and unfortunately for those of us who weren't there, I was in the middle of the script at the time and working with Ken, but from my understanding, it's disturbing to think that members of our military that are learning their techniques and training are getting it from entertainment like "24." One would think that their training would be far more extensive in the real world and that they'd understand that this is a heightened reality. Certainly the events that happen in a 24-hour period of Jack Bauer's life cannot be applied to real life, but it seems that some people do. But as much as we respect the idea, the opinion about torture in the real world, about whether or not is does work or doesn't work, and in most cases it doesn't, it certainly serves a dramatic purpose for our show; and it's very hard for us to adjust to a realistic depiction of torture, which usually goes on for weeks and months, when we only have 42 minutes for Jack to get information out of somebody. So it was sort of an interesting impasse, one that we can't really address except to give messages to those people out there in the armed forces: Listen to your commanding officers. Listen to your training. Don't be learning anything from watching entertainment like "24."
Mr. Ross: There's a lot of discussion about various things that happen on television and their influence. Does television have too much influence on people and does television have a responsibility, regardless what show it is, to be more realistic?
Mr. Fury: Well, that's certainly a loaded question because it just gets into "¦ right now TV is rated, American television has ratings on it, and there's certainly there's a warning at the beginning of every episode of "24" that parental discretion is advised because of the graphic nature of it. If we were to then censor ourselves out of fear that people would be imitating what we're doing, then I think we would be in a very bad place as a country. We'd start censoring ourselves, and when that starts, where do you stop? There's so many things that could influence. People could be jumping off buildings because they're inspired by heroes to try and fly. I mean at some point you have to just say, "Look, this is not the real world. This is not reality." And do we have a responsibility to depict reality? No, we don't. We have a responsibility to entertain, to be a diversion, and whether we go into something that's graphic or something that's shocking, that's all part of the experience of being entertained.
